


Slow Me Down

by musiquetta



Series: Thinkfast Week [4]
Category: Young Avengers
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 04:33:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2178051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musiquetta/pseuds/musiquetta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever since he's come back, David's been drowning in work. Tommy thinks that's a shame.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slow Me Down

**Author's Note:**

> For the "taking care of somebody" square of my Hurt/Comfort Bingo. Oh, and also for the 'Pre-Relationship' prompt of Thinkfast Week.

“No, if you would just – No, listen – don't you dare hang up on me I'm not sending flowers if you bite it, you hear – hello? Hello?” David growls and slams down the receiver down with more force than strictly necessary.

 

His forehead hits the table moments later. Too many calls, too many idiots incapable of listening to the advice they clearly called for. The phone rings again. He turns his head and holds the receiver to his ear.

 

“Technical support, you're speaking to David Alleyne.” he says, frowning at the panicked voice attacking his ears. He bolts upright. “No, why would you say that to Namor's face? Do you have a death wish?... At this point, run, change your name, change your _face_ and rethink your life choices. Yeah? Well, screw you, too.” Again the receiver slams down and David slumps into his chair.

 

“Rough day?”

 

David startles and looks up to see Tommy awkwardly leaning against the door frame.

 

“More a rough week.” David says. “Month, actually.”

 

He knows why Tommy is here and there really is nothing he wants to do more than go out for some food right now, especially since they hadn't really done that for the past two weeks. Also because David was living off some crappy microwave food he somehow crammed into his mouth before getting into bed way too late at night and he really, really missed coffee and noodles.

 

But it was no good. The facts are the facts and the facts are that he's going to get fired if he doesn't catch up on his workload. Ever since they had gotten back from their multidimensional Tommy hunt/world saving David was glad that he got his job back but his boss apparently tried to make him catch up on the work he missed the last few months.

 

“Listen, Tommy, I – ” he starts but Tommy just waves him off.

 

“Nah, it's cool.” Tommy smirks at him. “Save those poor jackasses that don't know better than to listen to you.” he says and is gone the same second. The phone rings again and David regrets every decision he made today.

 

Five hours later David drags himself home, seriously considering skipping the microwave meal to sleep about ten minutes longer.

 

When he opens the door to his apartment, the lights are already on. On pure instinct he drops his bag, prepared to fight.

 

Tommy sticks his head out of the kitchen.

 

“Oh, good, you're home. I was worried the food was gonna get cold.” The adrenaline vanishes from his body immediately, replaced by whatever hormones cause extreme annoyance and mild bloodlust. He attributes it to his exhaustion that he cannot name the hormone in question.

 

“Tommy.” he whines and leans against the wall. Even then his eyes droop shut for a second. It's a fight to get up again.

 

“Just sit down on the couch, food will be there in a second.” Tommy says, tone cheerful. Even when he's at the top of his game David has little chance of stopping Tommy once he set his mind on something.

 

So David's shoulders slump and he walks to the couch, defeated. If he looks half as tired as he feels, Tommy might take pity on him and leave after dinner. He slumps down on the couch, almost dozing off, the only thing keeping him awake was the smell drifting from the kitchen.

 

Something nags at the back of his skull. The clanking of dishes and pots make the wheels turn until it all clicks into place.

 

“Hey, Tommy.” he asks, vaguely into the direction of the kitchen. “Are you cooking in there?”

 

Tommy cackles.

 

David's head falls back against the couch. The dull throbbing in his skull that had accompanied him all week steadily grew into a moderate headache.

 

The speedster appears moments later, two plates of steaming noodles in his hands.

 

“Ta-Dah.” he says and puts the tables down on the coffee table.

 

“On a scale of one to I'm-going-to-kill-you how horrible looks my kitchen?” David murmurs, peeking at the food Tommy's handing him. God, that looks good, but he's still pretending that his stomach isn't grumbling right now and that those spaghetti don't smell better than everything he'd eaten in weeks.

 

“No way I cooked this, I was just looking for some bowls. I – ah, Billy's mom made it. She always cooks too much anyway.” He blushes at that and David raises an eyebrow, wondering whether Tommy has returned to the Kaplan home and at the back of his mind there's this nagging thought that they don't know all too much about each other.

 

Tommy flicks on the TV and starts eating. David frowns.

 

He really, really doesn't have time for this. He needs to get to bed, he has to be up in less than 7 hours and doesn't that thought promote his moderate headache to at least outstanding.

 

David sets down his plate and eats. The food is heavenly and David feels his bad mood dissipate and few bites later he's laughing at Tommy's running commentary.

 

It's not the same as in the restaurant. The TV is blasting some nature documentation from the nineties that David picked up from at least three different people and David's couch isn't really that big. Nor does Tommy have a good sense of personal space so they're touching. Constantly.

 

Because Tommy also can't keep still, he's shifting, bumping into David, while he's on some rant about that time he tried to race emus and David nearly drops his food at least three times. But the brush of warmth is nice, even if it always is fleeting, there and then gone, and it makes David want to lean into Tommy, to see what Tommy would do if the contact _lasted_.

 

David blinks rapidly, dragging his thoughts back from where they had ventured.

 

He really needs to get a grip, he isn't following the story Tommy is telling at all. By now Tommy is somewhere in Micronesia, pissing off a particularly large forest cat. He finishes his food and is dozing off now, smiling stupidly at the faces Tommy is making.

 

When he opens his eyes again, Tommy's face is close. David blinks lazily. Tommy cocks his head.

 

“Are we at a stage in our friendship where carrying you to your bed would be weird?” he asks.

 

David frowns.

 

“Yes.” he says, firmly. Tommy nods, as if filing away that information. David seriously thinks about backing that up with 'Nor will it ever not be weird.' But then Tommy is gone and so are the bowls. David trots into his bathroom to brush his teeth. When he comes out Tommy is gone.

 

The next morning David finds a coffee and a bagel sitting on his coffee table.

 

It begins to dawn on him that this is Tommy's way of showing concern, of caring for him. In a clumsy, incredibly invasion-of-privacy, breaking-and-entering kind of way, which was very Tommy. David sits down to drink his coffee and to contemplate what to do with the fluttery feeling that thought gave him.

 

Tommy doesn't come into work that day.

 

At night David sits on his couch, microwave meal on his lap, and stares at the spot left of him.

 

Who knows where Tommy is off to, having some adventure, backflipping along a mountain ridge, racing a cheetah or whatever that bizarre brain of his had cooked up today. He smiles at the thought and regrets that he never did catch up with the story Tommy had told him last night.

 

David puts out the light and goes to bed.

 

Seven hours later his alarm clock rings.

 

This time there's no evidence of Tommy breaking-and-entering, David notices.

 

It's probably weird how it kinda disappoints him that no one broke into his apartment that morning.

 

It's about lunch break when Tommy comes in with a bag of take-out and something else in his other hand. He puts it down on the table, along with the bag. David is about to tell him that he really doesn't have time for this, when he realizes what Tommy just dropped on his desk.

 

He suddenly realizes that his phone probably hadn't rung for at least ten minutes.

 

“Tommy,” he asks. “did you disable the phone lines for this building?” David asks as he scans the wires lying before him. Tommy shrugs.

 

“They already called tech support and told everyone to take five. I'll put them back after lunch.” The speedster hops onto David's table and starts unpacking the food.

 

“Tommy, you can't just – ” Tommy shushes him.

 

“I can, I have and I probably will again. Now shut up and eat. I didn't carry this all the way from Venice for you to bitch at me.”

 

“Please tell me that's a place in Little Italy.” David says as he accepts his fate and unpacks his food. All he gets for an answer is a laugh.

 

“Yeah, so anyway.” Tommy asks. “You'll never guess who I ran into yesterday.” David cocks an eyebrow.

 

“Wolverine!” Tommy exclaims. “And well, I'm still sort of pissed about that time he kept trying to kill my idiotic kid brother and my sort of mum so, I ran into him and I have this brilliant idea. I think I still have glitter in my hair and that one farmer from Vermont will personally name me in his supervillain origin story.”

 

It becomes a pattern, then, as much as Tommy does patterns. David cannot in good conscience call it a pattern because it's erratic, highly unreliable and always different. So, really, it's not a pattern at all – but Tommy keeps pulling ridiculous stunts or drops by David's apartment at odd hours, then vanishes for a couple of days.

 

One day thirteen geese get set loose in his boss's office. David doesn't even bother asking when during the ensuing chaos of flying feathers, quacking and screaming Tommy sidles up to him with Ben & Jerry's and two spoons.

 

It makes no sense at all – he sleeps less and Tommy's presence can be straining to say the least – but he sleeps better and yells at about 50% less callers. His headaches are bearable. He doesn't feel like murdering his alarm clock quite as brutally as before. Something about eating better and not spending his day entirely alone and in misery, probably.

 

The only consistent thing is that he's never there on the weekend and David doesn't know what to make of that.

 

True, he falls into bed on Friday night and sleeps until Saturday afternoon, pointlessly surfs the internet for a bit, watches some stupid TV shows and then sleeps until noon on Sunday.

 

The point is, on the weekend David might actually be able to hold a conversation instead of letting Tommy talk at him. They could actually go for coffee or food, or one of those dreadfully loud clubs Tommy always goes to. Anything, really, that would take David somewhere else than work, his apartment and the store occasionally.

 

Because as much as he feels better if Tommy is around, they're not really spending that much time together. As soon as he'd made sure David ate and had a conversation that didn't involve a superior yelling at him he took off and never bothered him during his downtime.

 

David chuckles slightly at the irony that it had taken a speedster to slow him down.

 

“So I wanted to thank you.” David says on a Thursday before Tommy pulls his Friday disappearing act. They are sitting on the roof eating Chinese watching the boss scream himself hoarse while his brand new car is getting towed.

 

(David didn't ask.)

 

Tommy raises an eyebrow and turns his head.

 

“For what?” David smiles.

 

“Not letting me work myself to death, I guess.”

 

Tommy snorts.

 

“Yeah, right. I just hate eating alone that's all. Besides,” Tommy leans forward to watch David's boss chase the tow truck, satisfied smile on his lips. “he's a dick.”

 

“So what are you doing on the weekend?” David says, giving Tommy a smirk that says it all; David doesn't believe a thing Tommy is saying right now. Except for his boss being a dick, that's a fair observation.

 

Tommy shrugs. “No idea, why?”

 

“Because I think we should go somewhere and have some fun.” Tommy raises his eyebrows.

 

“You're not talking about the library, are you?”

 

“Screw you, too.” Tommy laughs at David's mock glare. “I was serious, though. Drag me to some club, if I spend one more Saturday inside my apartment I'm going too scream.”

 

“Don't you need to catch up on some sleep?” Tommy asks, quietly, after shuffling around for a bit. David grins at Tommy. It was cute really, the way Tommy backed off from the idea of messing with David's downtime. David decides it's probably best not to say anything.

 

“Yeah, but life's short.” David says, mimicking Tommy's words from when they first met, a lifetime ago. Tommy laughs and slaps his arm around David's shoulders, bumping into his side.

 

“That's what I always say.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've got some more written for this week which was sort of to short to bother with AO3. You can check it out in the [thinkfast week tag](http://cptcarol.tumblr.com/tagged/thinkfastweek) on my tumblr. Also I promise I will stop spamming you guys as soon as this week is over :D


End file.
